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"Trying to control home prices is like trying to control the tide of the sea. It's pointless." Vienna has been controlling the home prices by building houses w

by holri 10y ago

"Trying to control home prices is like trying to control the tide of the sea. It's pointless." Vienna has been controlling the home prices by building houses with great success for decades. [1] Vienna is the largest apartment owner in Europe and 220,000 community dwellings also the largest property management company in Europe. Hardly any other European city is so valued for their social housing as Vienna. https://www.wien.gv.at/english/housing/promotion/pdf/socialhous.pdf https://www.wien.gv.at/english/housing/promotion/pdf/socialh...

jomamaxx 10y ago
"Vienna has been controlling the home prices by building houses with great success for decades. [1]" Vienna is controlling nothing. Vienna has failed to create global industries that attract value creators from around the world and other kinds of firms. If they did, there would be people getting wealthy on a global scale, 'screwing up the housing market', and there's little that could be done about it. Owning 200K homes is a terrible thing for the government to be doing - it's a relic of 20st century socialist thinking. It's incredibly inefficient. The remaining homes will be priced to 're-balance' the actual market dynamics in the region given the government intervention. This inefficiency amounts to a) waste and b) and unfair subsidy by taxpayers, especially those in the countryside to people living in state-owned homes on land which is really expensive. Again - it's better just to have basic regulations and smart developers, those people would be living in privately owned homes just a little further from city centre. Again - you simply cannot control the tides - the money you spend fighting it is wasted, and most government operations are considerably more inefficient than private ones, which leads to another form of waste. In Toronto (almost the size of Austria), nearly 1/3 of the 'special housing budget' goes to the staff working on the team. It would be more efficient (though unfair) just to directly subsidizes of lower income people and let the market decide how the spaces are allocated.
- holri 10y ago
  Vienna is often rated as having the best quality of live in the world: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercer_Quality_of_Living_Survey https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercer_Quality_of_Living_Surve... The social (housing) politics for over 80 years now is a big factor for that outcome.
  - jomamaxx 10y ago
    I'm aware of that. It's a great place. Housing affordability is only one part of the equation. Also - what makes a place a 'great place to live' is highly subjective. It depends on what you want to measure.
    - holri 10y ago
      Housing is the root of quality of live. Not only housing afford ability is important but also quality of housing. Social housings in Vienna come sometimes with pools on the flat roof or saunas. They built Gemeindebauten [1] (social housings) in posh areas. They made exceptional architecture for the people. (for example Hundertwasserhaus) [2] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gemeindebau https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gemeindebau [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hundertwasserhaus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hundertwasserhaus
- xg15 10y ago
  Vienna has failed to create global industries that attract value creators from around the world and other kinds of firms. If they did, there would be people getting wealthy on a global scale, 'screwing up the housing market', and there's little that could be done about it. - "If you follow development strategy X, housing prices cannot be controlled. Therefore housing prices can never be controlled!" - Vienna chooses another development strategy that avoids the problem - "No! They're not supposed to do that! Bad!" Again - it's better just to have basic regulations and smart developers, those people would be living in privately owned homes just a little further from city centre. You mean like in Germany where lots of former public housing has been sold to private conglomerates - which have increased rents and cut back maintenance to a minimum?

by holri 10y ago

jomamaxx 10y ago

"Vienna has been controlling the home prices by building houses with great success for decades. [1]" Vienna is controlling nothing. Vienna has failed to create global industries that attract value creators from around the world and other kinds of firms. If they did, there would be people getting wealthy on a global scale, 'screwing up the housing market', and there's little that could be done about it. Owning 200K homes is a terrible thing for the government to be doing - it's a relic of 20st century socialist thinking. It's incredibly inefficient. The remaining homes will be priced to 're-balance' the actual market dynamics in the region given the government intervention. This inefficiency amounts to a) waste and b) and unfair subsidy by taxpayers, especially those in the countryside to people living in state-owned homes on land which is really expensive. Again - it's better just to have basic regulations and smart developers, those people would be living in privately owned homes just a little further from city centre. Again - you simply cannot control the tides - the money you spend fighting it is wasted, and most government operations are considerably more inefficient than private ones, which leads to another form of waste. In Toronto (almost the size of Austria), nearly 1/3 of the 'special housing budget' goes to the staff working on the team. It would be more efficient (though unfair) just to directly subsidizes of lower income people and let the market decide how the spaces are allocated.

holri 10y ago
Vienna is often rated as having the best quality of live in the world: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercer_Quality_of_Living_Survey https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercer_Quality_of_Living_Surve... The social (housing) politics for over 80 years now is a big factor for that outcome.
- jomamaxx 10y ago
  I'm aware of that. It's a great place. Housing affordability is only one part of the equation. Also - what makes a place a 'great place to live' is highly subjective. It depends on what you want to measure.
  - holri 10y ago
    Housing is the root of quality of live. Not only housing afford ability is important but also quality of housing. Social housings in Vienna come sometimes with pools on the flat roof or saunas. They built Gemeindebauten [1] (social housings) in posh areas. They made exceptional architecture for the people. (for example Hundertwasserhaus) [2] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gemeindebau https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gemeindebau [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hundertwasserhaus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hundertwasserhaus
xg15 10y ago
Vienna has failed to create global industries that attract value creators from around the world and other kinds of firms. If they did, there would be people getting wealthy on a global scale, 'screwing up the housing market', and there's little that could be done about it. - "If you follow development strategy X, housing prices cannot be controlled. Therefore housing prices can never be controlled!" - Vienna chooses another development strategy that avoids the problem - "No! They're not supposed to do that! Bad!" Again - it's better just to have basic regulations and smart developers, those people would be living in privately owned homes just a little further from city centre. You mean like in Germany where lots of former public housing has been sold to private conglomerates - which have increased rents and cut back maintenance to a minimum?